Lost and Found

Wednesday Morning – Bar Harbor.

We may have abandoned the search for the Great Garlic Commune. Our energies, instead, have been directed toward finding dry land. Yesterday, I broke down and purchased a pair of North Face pants. My freshman year roommate (the Outdoor Education major) would be extremely proud. The pants are nothing short of perfect for rainy Maine. They roll up, zip off into shorts and dry immediately.

So. The rain is apparently the aftermath of some hurricane down south. It’s not supposed to stop until Friday. We leave Saturday. Brilliant.

The highlights of yesterday include hiking up a foggy mountain on Bar Harbor, swimming in a rainy and almost deserted mountainside lake, eating a lobster tail, eating blueberry pie (again), listening to the new Death Cab album while driving through the tree-lined foothills (an absolutely beautiful match) and watching March of the Penguins from the balcony of a historical theater.

And laundry. Hot dry clothes are lovely.

We’re camping on an island tonight. Hopefully the rain will stop and the fog will lift, so we can see that we’re on an island.

Rock.

And now a list of things for you to do:

Go buy the new Death Cab album.
E-mail me your phone number (or call, so I can just store it).
Go watch March of the Penguins.
Use whatever spiritual forces you have to get the rain to stop.

P.S. I'm typing this at an Internet Cafe being run by a former Buddhist Monk who also used to write programs for Macintosh. He's very excited that I'm using a Mac. The End.

Monday Evening - Bar Harbor.

We're at a hostel, and we're going to bed early with food comas. We haven't stopped consuming food and beverages since we arrived at Bar Harbor this afternoon. We've had locally brewed beer, lobster rolls, clam chowder, mussels, wine, coffee and blueberry pie (ala mode).

Today's mission (personally) was not to find the Great Garlic Commune, but to successfully regain use of a cell phone. This took Maya and I to the only corporate Cingular store in Southern Maine. After a few near misses with the chach who worked the service counter (and at least one, "fucking hell"), I now have cellular service.

I'll skip the details and go straight to the best part of the conversation.

Me: "So pretty much, what you're saying is that I'm screwed."

Chach at Cingular: "If that's what you want to call it, yes."

Tomorrow, food coma permitting, Maya and I plan on getting out of bed.

Monday Morning - Skowhegan Maine.

I just remembered a "fun fact" from the naked hippie / lawyer from Bangor who saw me fall into the river yesterday afternoon.

Fun Fact: The guys who ran into the Twin Towers stayed at the very Day's Inn that we slept in on Saturday night.

That Day's Inn did not have an internet connection. Our campsite does. (Just to reiterate.)

It's raining. I'm sitting inside the car while Maya sleeps.

Sunday Evening – Skowhegan

We’re not sure exactly where we are. Skowhegan may not even exist. But if it does, we’re close to it. Maya and I are currently in the middle of Maine, about an hour and a half northwest of Portland.

Here are a few things that we’re sure of:

We’re sure that we’re sitting in front of a campfire.
We’re sure that it took at least four beers to put up our tent in the dark. (Two to fall over and two to be consumer.)
We’re sure that there are no sticks around for toasting marshmallows.
And we’re sure that if we felt like it, we could bid on boots on eBay.

Yes. Our “campsite” has wireless Internet.

In other news, I accidentally fell in a river at the hippie vegetarian potluck this afternoon. It was a humorous sight, as my feet slid down the rock, thrusting me, jeans and all, into a beautiful, clean and clear river.

Said river was so beautiful, clean and clear that I could see my cell phone from the shore. Sitting there, like a clam with a pearl, on the bed of the river.

It’s a neat feeling, seeing your only source of outside communication sitting at the bottom of a river.

Your only source of communication, that is, until you hit the campground.

Ah, the serenity of nature.

P.S. No news on the Great Garlic Commune, though we do have one possible lead.

P.S.S. Now would be a good time to e-mail me your phone number,

Sunday Afternoon - Portland.

I wasn't kidding when I said that Maya and I would eat Maine. One of our stranger goals for this trip is to find a supposed Garlic Commune in Central Maine. A couple years back, while hitchhiking, my friend Susan was picked up by a man who lived in a Garlic Commune. She never saw it, and only has a vague idea as to where it is. But that isn't enough to stop us from trying to find it.

At the restaurant last night, (where we spent as much money as we did for a night at the luxurious Day's Inn), we - okay, I - asked no fewer than five strangers, including our waitress, and the cute boys from Brooklyn, if they knew of the Garlic Commune.

They didn't.

We're taking a major step toward uncovering the mystery of the Garlic Commune this afternoon, though. In just a few minutes, Maya and I will embark on a journey to a hippie vegetarian potluck out on a farm somewhere near here. We saw a poster. We called the number. We're ready to eat bean sprouts.

Knowing, of course, that we'll somehow find a way to sneak in real food later.

Over and out.

Vacation.

It's been a couple of years since I've been on an adventure with Maya. Sadly, last summer was lost to misguided reveries of a romantic getaway with a beau of republican leanings. In retrospect, disregarding logical fallacies, I have come up with a simple calculation.

Vacation = Fun.

Dating Republican = No Vacation.

Therefore, Dating Republican = No Fun.

This year, I've come to my senses, and realized that terrorizing a portion of the United States with Miss Maya is much more fulfilling than any romance-filled tropical island fantasy my mind can concoct. Throughout the years, she and I have stirred up dive bars in Calistoga, discovered Barcelona at dawn, skinny dipped in salty seas and coerced an almost certainly gay Canuck to entertain us for an evening in Vancouver. The stories are endless. Starting Saturday, we will have more to add to the Amazing Adventures of Maya and Jill, as she and I will eat our way through Maine.

We will arrive with a tent, a map, some sleeping bags and a change purse full of beer money. With almost no plans, we'll let our stomachs be our guide.

I hope to update the blog on a regular basis. (More so than I do now). And for those of you who recall our West Coast trip from two summers back, we are bringing back the mix cd contest. I know it's a little late in the game, but if you want to be judged by us as we drive our economy rental car around the Northeastern seaboard, feel free to get either of us a cd.

Here are the rules:

1. Come up with a theme and title.
2. No Oasis.
3. No Tom Waits covers.
4. Bonus points for cover art.
5. Write down the artist and titles.

We'll need the final entries by Friday.

The winner will receive a prize that we pick especially for you from Maine. It may or may not be a dead lobster carcus. I'm not telling.

So Professional.

So I'm in the boardroom, post lunch. I'm leaning back (in a skirt) with my knees on the table, holding a copy of Slaughterhouse Five. I'm barefoot and I'm wearing a hideous ensemble of rust, peach and hunter green. (The rust and peach was intentional. I was brave in my dressing this morning. The hunter green was a jacket that I'd borrowed to keep from freezing in the air conditioning.) I have a Band-Aid on my cheek, covering the scar from my trip to the dermatologist earlier in the week. I'm conversing with my co-workers, who are outside of the boardroom.

One of them says, "Jesus Christ" as a reaction to something.

This inspires me to belt out the lyrics of one of the saddest songs in Tom Waits' oeuvre.

I'm singing "Jesus Christ, this god damn rain. Will someone put me on a train? I'll never kiss your lips again…" while rocking back and forth by myself, when one of the cashiers walks into the office with someone.

"Is Jill here? She's got someone to see her."

"She's singing hymns," my coworker says, obviously unaware that "god damn" is not usually a phrase found in most hymnals.

They walk into the boardroom.

Bare feet. Peach, rust, hunter green. Band aid. Rocking back and forth. Singing.

The surprise guest is a man I used to work for. I used to despise him. He's wearing a suit and tie. He's carrying a leather clipboard.

I go in for the handshake; he goes for the hug. The entire situation is horrifying.

This is why people have receptionists.

Air Changes.

There are categories of crying. There's "He broke up with me at Disney World with a note folded into a triangle." There's "I'm at my grandfather's funeral, and I've never spoken a word to him." There's "Would you just please fucking figure out what's wrong with my computer so I can redo six hours' worth of design?" There's "I just slammed a dresser into my big toe and, yep, something's bleeding down there."

And then there's "I'm buying tomatoes at a vegetable stand in August and now I'm crying for no apparent reason."

That was yesterday. It came on rather suddenly, and I'm still surprised. It started with my drive from the Library to Rife's. I drove with my windows down, and my left arm properly extended, allowing the air to tickle my fingers. Yesterday's weather was a taste of autumn. The air was crisp, clean, light.

In the short drive, I remembered.

Friday nights dressed in Smurf blue polyester next to Sarah and Lainie. We were in the drumline at the high school football games, sealing our fates as nerds. We cared more about whether that snare drum player noticed any of us, than whether our team won.

Athens, Ohio. That first trip to the bookstore, buying clean notebooks and used philosophy and art history textbooks. I promised myself that this time around, the notes would be studied and the texts would be read thoroughly. The fresh autumn air brought promises.

Mornings in Edinburgh, Scotland. An entire day ahead of me. Fueled by a breakfast of a Big Kit Kat and Cherry Coke, and armed with a camera and twenty rolls of film, I boarded the bus toward old town. The morning air whispered the correct f-stop, while I dreamed of National Geographic bylines.

Late summer in Chicago, Illinois. I'm in bed in his studio apartment, awake hours earlier than the previous evening's festivities warranted. The window is cracked, and the air finds my face. It feels like Ohio, but there's not a tree to be seen. My eyes fill up with tears.

Early autumn in Grandview. Kristin and I skip out on responsibilities and take a late evening walk through the neighborhood, stopping, maybe, at The Rack for a beer. It's too cool for mosquitoes and too warm for socks. We talk about things big and small. We dream about the future.

I arrived at the grocery in my old neighborhood, as my mind left me with that final memory of autumn walks with Kristin. I pulled out my phone and left her a message. "I miss you," I started, "And I miss Grandview." And then I'm crying. Over the tomatoes. Next to the corn. On Kristin's voice mail. The tears were unexplainable and they did not stop. I hung up and allowed the cool air and blue sky to continue to taunt me, and let the memories take over.

It was a cry that was silent. To a stranger, I was just particular about my tomatoes. I stopped the tears to step inside to pay. I knew my eyes were red, so I did not make eye contact with the boy who rang me up.

But I knew he could tell that something was wrong. I took my tomatoes, smiled and thanked him. He told me to have a nice day, and moved on to pricing watermelon.

I'm sure that this sort of thing happens all the time.

Pass The Conditioner.

That blonde guy with long curly hair who works in the Children's section of the Library has been pretty nice to me ever since I ran into him at Comfest, with a few beers in my system.

"Hey!" I screamed toward Sarah (because screaming is the best way to communicate when you're drinking a giant pink cup of Rolling Rock), "There's that Library Guy!"

"What's his name?" she asked.

"I don't know. Library Guy... Hey! Library Guy!" We were yelling his name across the lawn. He finally recognized his new nickname and turned to us.

After we caught his attention, both of us realized that we had nothing to say to Library Guy. Yes, we work together, and yes, we were at Comfest together, but we didn't even know his name. That's not really enough to overcome the awkwardness of the situation.

"Hey Jill," he said, "Hi Sarah." He knew our names. Oops.

"Um. So do you want to hand out fliers for the contest we're doing at the Library?" I shoved thirty fliers at him.

He accepted them and we walked away.

Library Guy and I exchanged a few words this afternoon. He admitted that he never handed out the fliers at Comfest. I forgave him and walked back to my office wondering if Library Guy is dateable, but quickly swallowed the thought. Although I now know and can recite Library Guy's real name on command, I'm not very sure that I can date someone who has the same hairstyle as me. Though it might be cool to share hair products.

Public Radio.

So I interviewed Garrison Keillor last week, but our sponsorship fell through. So I don't quite know what to do with my interview. We could still publish it in the newsletter, or I could put it up on the blog. Or I can wait ten years and sell it to Terry Gross at Fresh Air as a historical relic.

I went to his show last night, even though my company's logo wasn't plastered throughout the venue. It was at the Ohio State Fair. I had a corn dog, a lemon shake up and many a laugh and toe tap. The crowd was definitely of public radio persuasion, as could be seen by the tote bags.

While Keillor was entertaining, my favorite line of the evening came from my friend Jen, who I haven't seen in over a year. While planning our arrival to the fairgrounds, she started a phone conversation with, "Leave it to Public Radio to bring us back together."

Office Thought.

Sometimes I wonder. Does the person who receives my ad at the end of every week realize that I just resend the previous week's e-mail with a new attachment?

Subject: The Ad

Body: Here it is. Best, Jill.

I wonder if that person even cares.

New Neighborhood.

So I went to the cooperative grocery in my neighborhood today. (I know that technically, that's like cheating on my employer, but I figure that I'm also checking out the competition, and it's not a big box store. Right.) Without premeditation, I wore my "Mad Cowboy Disease" t-shirt.

Like coffee shops, co-ops can be intimidating places. They're almost like high school. There are the people who *belong* and those who don't belong. Generally, when I go into these crunchy community places, I fall into the "don't belong" category. It took me half a year to be comfortable at my Grandview coffee shop. And it took two years for me to feel at home at the campus dive in town.

Nonetheless, what I've learned today, is that when you wear something criticizing Dubya into a cooperative grocery store, chances are, you're going to be accepted immediately.